February 2016 Email Market Share: Mobile Opens Climb Back to 55%

February market share watched email opens grow back to their highest levels yet–55%. Desktop opens remained stagnant since last month while opens decreased from 27% to 26% of opens. Let’s take an comprehensive look at February market share information!

TOP 10 EMAIL CLIENTS

The top 10 email clients’ positions have remained unchanged since December 2015, Gmail, with Apple iPhone, and Apple iPad continue to hold the top 3 spots.

Apple iPhone: 33.0%

Gmail: 15.8%

Apple iPad: 11.6percent

Android: 10.3percent

Apple Mail: 7.6percent

Outlook: 6.7%

Yahoo! Mail: 3.0percent

Outlook.com: 2.1percent

Windows Live Mail: 1.3percent

Thunderbird: 0.7percent

Discover your top 10

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ENVIRONMENT GROWTH

February ended with mobile representing webmail with 26 percent of opens, 55% of opens, and desktop with 19% of opens. While desktop opens have remained stagnant since January, cellular opens increased 1.9%, and webmail opens decreased 3.3%.

The differences might seem slight in contrast to last month, but it s a major change from last year. Since February 2015:

Mobile opens have increased 19.6percent

Webmail unlocks have decreased 18.8%

Desktop unlocks have decreased 13.6percent

DIGGING INTO MOBILE OPENS

Apple iPhone and iPad represent 44.6% of total opens, and 80.8percent of mobile opens. This is fantastic news for designers because iOS has support for HTML and CSS. If you’re seeing a huge proportion of your audience opening in these clients, try using modern techniques such as HTML5 video and CSS3 animation to find out if it increases participation.

Since January, iPhone unlocks increased 4.1%, while iPad opens decreased 4.1%. IPad opens have been on a continual decline over the last year and have decreased 4.9% since March 2015.

It is likely no coincidence that the iPad’s downturn to 11.6percent of unlocks has accompanied a downturn in pill sales. As of Q4 2014, Apple had sold 12.3 million iPads, while Q4 2015 gures report earnings of 9.8 million–a 20% fall.

DIGGING INTO DESKTOP OPENS

While Outlook opens have remained relatively stagnant since January, they have taken a hit since last year. Outlook opens have diminished a whopping 27.2% since March 2015. This decrease is likely a result of business moving to scalable services, and shifting away from desktop suites , like Gmail Apps.

However, Outlook opens nevertheless represent 6.7% of market share, so it shouldn’t be discounted. Digging into Outlook stats, here’s a breakdown of which models subscribers are currently using:

Outlook 2000-2003: 15%

Outlook 2007: 16 percent

Outlook 2010: 35 percent

Outlook 2013: 27 percent

Outlook 2016: 7%

For designers, these later versions of Outlook use Microsoft Word to render mails. HTML and CSS support in Outlook 2007+ is less than ideal.

Here’s just some of what email designers are up against:

No support for background images in divs and table cells

No support for CSS float or position

No support for text shadow

Poor support for padding and margin

Poor support for CSS width and height

Problems with nested components background colors

Then definitely keep these quirks in mind, if you’re seeing a huge percentage of your audience opening in Outlook clients.

DIGGING INTO WEBMAIL OPENS

Webmail opens have remained relatively unchanged since last month, but have seen significant changes. Since March 2015, Gmail opens decreased 11.7percent and Outlook.com opens decreased 53.3%.

The fall in Gmail opens and rise of iPhone and Android opens may indicate these phones are being switched back to the programs that are native on by users of the Gmail app. The Gmail app for iOS and Android continually frustrate users using their notoriously poor support for responsive design.

Where did we get all this information?

This information is derived from over 13 billion opens collected worldwide with Litmus Email Analytics between February 1, 2015 and February 28, 2016. Trends that are worldwide are highlighted by it across verticals and all industries. Some email clients may be over- or under-represented due to image. Tracking trends over time is the perfect way to track data !

Which email clients are most popular with your audience?

It’s your audience that matters while overall email client information is fantastic for looking at trends. With the addition of a little tracking code for your campaigns, Litmus Email Analytics generates a record of where your emails open. Use that data ensure your campaigns — and to focus your testing efforts look great in inboxes where your readers are opening.